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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25522807">Neuanfang</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrtlebroadbelt/pseuds/myrtlebroadbelt'>myrtlebroadbelt</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dark (TV 2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5 Times, F/M, Guilt, Secrets</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:33:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,502</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25522807</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrtlebroadbelt/pseuds/myrtlebroadbelt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Aleksander almost told Regina the truth, and one time he didn't have to.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aleksander Tiedemann | Boris Niewald/Regina Tiedemann</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Neuanfang</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><i>But I swear I thought I dreamed her</i><br/><i>She never asked me once about the wrong I did</i><br/>- Hozier, “Work Song”</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Boris almost tells her on his first day in Winden.</p><p>He leans against her as they stumble into the house, and he thinks, <em>Aleksander, Aleksander, Aleksander</em>, so he won’t forget.</p><p>Twenty minutes later, he’s slumped on the lid of the toilet while Regina perches on the edge of the bathtub, pressing a gauze pad to his bare shoulder. She pushes her glasses further up her nose, her brow furrowed in concentration.</p><p>And suddenly all he wants to do is confess.</p><p>She’s seen his gun, watched him shake his head when she mentioned a doctor. She must know he’s in trouble. But she still trusted him enough to take him home. To help him. Maybe even to save his life.</p><p>She’s forming her own ideas about him. What she’s imagining could be worse than the truth. If he explained that it was an accident ...</p><p>He can feel the shape of the words in his mouth: <em>My name is Boris. I did something stupid. I’m looking for a fresh start.</em></p><p>“Aleksander?”</p><p>Regina’s voice cuts through his thoughts, and he blinks at her.</p><p>“Can you hold this here?” she asks. “While I get the bandages?”</p><p>Boris nods, bringing his other hand up to hold the gauze in place. His fingers cover hers, and Regina stares for a second before moving her hand. She tucks her hair behind her ear as she reaches for the bandages.</p><p>There’s something fragile between them now. Precious. He doesn’t want to break it, and he doesn’t think she does either. That’s why she’s not asking. </p><p>If he tells her he lied about his name, she won’t believe anything else he says, even if it’s true.</p><p>So he doesn’t tell her.</p><p>Instead, he says, “Do you know where I might be able to find work?”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>He tells her he loves her, because he does.</p><p>And then he thinks, if he loves her, she deserves to know the truth.</p><p>He sits with his guilt all week. Imagines how he would tell her. Pictures her face falling. Hears her question everything he’s ever said to her.</p><p>He thinks how selfish it is, that he would rather lie to her than lose her. But to break her heart to ease his conscience — wouldn’t that be selfish, too?</p><p>Everything changes when the telephone rings.</p><p>Regina is crying so much he can barely understand her.</p><p>“I’m coming,” he says. “Wait for me.”</p><p>He’s worried she’s going to hurt herself.</p><p>Her face is red and damp when she opens the door. He takes her into his arms, and they stand there together on the front porch while the rain spills over the edge of the roof.</p><p>“Where is she?” Regina whispers into his shoulder. “I don’t understand.”</p><p>All Boris can think, as he strokes a hand over the back of her hair, is that he would do anything to take her pain away. He cannot fathom doing anything to add to it.</p><p>She needs him now. Needs Aleksander.</p><p>So he doesn’t tell her.</p><p>Instead, he says, “Everything is okay.”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>“I think I should take your name,” Aleksander says, a few weeks into their engagement.</p><p>“Regina?” she quips. “I don’t think it suits you.”</p><p>He forces a smile, when what he really wants to do is wince. </p><p>“No,” he says, coming over to sit with her on the sofa. “Tiedemann.”</p><p>Regina has Gretchen in her lap, and her fingers slow their petting as she realizes he’s serious. “Where is this coming from?”</p><p>Aleksander pauses. There are far too many answers to that question.</p><p>That he can’t bear to pass down a name that's no more his own than it would be his wife's. That he doesn’t want their children to carry on a legacy of lies. That Regina Tiedemann saved him, and Claudia Tiedemann gave him a chance, and he owes them everything.</p><p>(It’s only his pragmatism that reminds him he could do with the added anonymity.)</p><p>“Your family shaped this town,” Aleksander declares. “We should keep the name alive.”</p><p>Sometimes he feels like he’s lying even when he’s being sincere. Like everything he says is undermined by everything he doesn’t.</p><p>But there’s so much warmth in Regina’s eyes.</p><p>“Aleksander Tiedemann,” she says, testing it out. “Hm. I like it.”</p><p><em>And what about Boris Tiedemann?</em>, he wants to ask, but he can’t stand to lose her smile.</p><p>So he doesn’t tell her.</p><p>Instead, he says, “I like it, too.”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>His past catches up with him in a plastic shopping bag.</p><p>After he calls Wöller, Aleksander sits at his desk and curses himself. For the piss-poor job he did burying everything all those years ago. For getting himself into this situation in the first place.</p><p>But most of all, he curses himself for never telling Regina the truth.</p><p>If he can’t do what Hannah demands, or pay her enough to satisfy her, then Regina will have to hear everything from someone else. Someone who no doubt has a twisted idea of his past and is eager to share it.</p><p>Hannah might not even bother going to the police — maybe she’ll just waltz into the hotel and slap his passport down on the reception desk.</p><p>It’s enough to get him to pick up the phone and dial Regina’s number.</p><p>“Yeah?” she answers, sounding distracted.</p><p>“Is everything okay?” Aleksander asks.</p><p>“It’s fine. I was just cleaning one of the rooms. What did you need?”</p><p>It hits him then just how much is on her mind. </p><p>The cancer results. The hotel losing business. Not to mention what happened with Katharina at school the other night. The last thing she needs to hear right now is that her husband is being blackmailed.</p><p>He promised himself he wouldn’t add to her pain.</p><p>So he doesn’t tell her.</p><p>Instead, he says, “I’ll be home early tonight. Don’t work too hard.”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Even at sixteen, Bartosz still makes a habit of snooping for his Christmas gifts, so Regina takes extra care to hide them this year.</p><p>It’s times like these when she regrets going for minimalism.</p><p>She’s moving things around on a shelf in Aleksander’s closet, trying to make a box of video games look like just another shoebox, when a scrap of newspaper glides down and lands on the floor by her foot. </p><p>Regina picks it up, thinking it must have been stuffed into one of Aleksander’s shoes to keep the shape. She nearly crumples it up to throw away, but the bold black headline catches her eye.</p><p>
  <b>MURDER IN MARBURG STILL UNSOLVED AFTER 33 YEARS</b>
</p><p>She doesn’t even have to do the math.</p><p>If there’s one date that will be burned into Regina’s memory forever, it’s 1986 — the year a boy with a bullet wound walked out of the woods to defend her.</p><p>Thirty-three years ago, last month.</p><p>Regina folds the article over loosely, not reading any further. She closes her eyes and puts a hand on the shelf to steady herself. </p><p>A familiar dread settles in her stomach. It was there when she opened the results of her cancer screening, just like it was when Ulrich and Katharina left her tied to a tree the summer before she met Aleksander.</p><p>It’s a dread that disappears when he’s with her.</p><p>This thought gives her enough courage to step into the kitchen and retrieve her glasses to finish the article.</p><p>Regina reads it slowly. When she’s done, she reads it over again. She lingers on certain sentences, waiting for the shock and horror to arrive, but they never do. If anything, she feels relieved.</p><p>She’s imagined worse.</p><p>Not because she thought him capable of it; it’s just what her mind does. Her whole life, she’s had blanks to fill in — who her father was, what happened to Mads, where her mother disappeared to, how her grandfather died.</p><p>And, well, she’s never been much of an optimist.</p><p>She could have asked him about it, and maybe he would have told her. But meeting Aleksander felt like a new beginning for her. It was the least she could do to return the favor.</p><p>She may not know who he was, but she knows who he is, and that’s all that matters.</p><p>Regina puts down the newspaper and picks up the phone.</p><p>“Are you feeling all right?” Aleksander asks in greeting.</p><p>“I’m fine,” she says, smiling. “I wanted to tell you that I hid some of Bartosz’s Christmas gifts in your closet. On the top shelf.”</p><p>There’s a tense pause before Aleksander responds, “Okay.”</p><p>He’s always tried so hard to be brave. Ever since that first day.</p><p>She wants to tell him that she knows. That he doesn’t have to hide it anymore. </p><p>“Aleksander …” </p><p>Regina trails off, and he waits for her to continue.</p><p>She’s thinking of a time just a few weeks ago when things were the other way around, and it was him discovering a secret of hers. How he said so much in so few words, and it was everything she needed.</p><p>So she doesn’t tell him.</p><p>Instead, she says, “I love you. No matter what.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Shoutout to hcadology on Tumblr for <a href="https://hcadology.tumblr.com/post/622959600755458048/marburg-murder-remains-unsolved-after-33-years">this translation</a> of the newspaper article.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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